Oct 1 Asa Butterfield

Catch Butterfield's latest lead role opposite Eva Green in Tim Burton's highly anticipated film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which premieres this weekend. Check out a portion of his interview + a few of the exclusive photos from his 10-page spread below.

Asa Butterfield is not the swanky name of a new British cult spy hero… though it could be. Butterfield, the star of Ender’s Game and the upcoming Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,has been acting for the past ten years. Since his critically acclaimed performance in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and now, at 19, he’s successfully transitioned to adulthood.

He’s currently relaxing on the balcony of his newly purchased first home, a flat in Dorset, enjoying a rare day of sunshine in London. He just returned from shooting an indie feature in Minneapolis, Peter Livolsi’s big screen adaptation of Peter Bognanni’s award-winning novel The House of Tomorrow. “It was quite a short shoot,” he says of the brutal, month-long filming schedule. "Everyone was working really hard to get it done. We got some really amazing shots,” he says. “You come home every day feeling pretty good." The film will be his 14th feature, an incredible accomplishment for someone so young, whose career began on a whim at age nine.

Born and raised in London, young Butterfield did not dream of stardom. "I didn't grow up with this in mind,” he says. “I didn't even really know what acting was. I didn't really consider it as an option. It didn't cross my mind, I don't think.” He was spotted by a casting director at an after-school drama club that he frequented with his brother and the next thing he knew he was starring in the acclaimed British historical drama The Boy in the Striped Pajamas based on the John Boyne novel of the same name. “I just thought, ‘Why not?’" The movie, as he says, “did quite well” and immediately put his name on a short list of talented child actors.

At the time, however, Butterfield had no experience or great passion for acting. In fact, to this day, he isn’t really sure why the casting director singled him out. He wasn’t a particularly hammy, demonstrative kid and his mom only put him in the drama club to help him socialize. "They wanted me to make friends. I think what came from that was kind of unexpected for everyone.”